The Hidden Power Of Organ Meats, And How To Get Your Family On Board

James Barry

Thank you. It’s very exciting to be here.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s going to be a great talk today. My audience is curious about what I should eat and what foods are the most healing. What can I do to support my body from a food perspective? We’ve been talking a lot on this summit about nutrient deficiencies as an underlying cause of inflammatory disease. So we’re going to talk about some solutions today for nutrient deficiency, a problem that we see rampant in developed countries. Specifically, we’re going to talk about organ meats today, but we’re also going to give tips to people who are vegetarians and vegans. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered, whether you’re a meat eater or not, because, James, you’re a professional chef and know how to make it easier to have healthy food in your life. We’ll cover all things today. I’d love it if you could start by telling us why. What is the situation that we’re in? Needing nutrient-rich foods more than ever. Why is this important, and how did we even get here?

James Barry

It’s something like 92% of the U.S. is deficient in at least one or more vitamins or minerals. It’s huge. Of course, we’re way over that. yet we’re not calorie-deficient. There’s a disconnect. It does start with us being disconnected from what we’re eating. When we eat out, for example, when we purchase food from a grocery store, we have to remember that these are businesses that have bottom lines. there are very small margins in the food industry, very small margins. One way to increase your profit is to use inexpensive ingredients. Right off the bat, if you are not in control of your ingredients, I would say it’s virtually impossible to be healthy. I’m all about being in control, cooking from home, and looking for things that are ingredients versus things that have ingredients. What does that mean?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Say that again. We say that. that’s important.

James Barry

Look for things that are ingredients versus things that have ingredients. It’s key. Because I’ve been in this industry, I’ve been a professional chef for over 20 years now, and trends have come and gone. But what has not come and gone is the importance of whole foods. This is why it applies to whether you’re vegan or a carnivore. It’s all about eating real, whole foods. When we talk about processed foods, for example, we can’t just stop there because, if I take a carrot and chop it, that’s now a processed carrot. What’s it about Is it ultra-processed? How long is that list of ingredients? The more you can stay away from that, the better. We can simplify things no matter what your diet is. You want to focus on a handful of things, and in the words we hear thrown out a lot, but it is truly this basic: you want to have some protein, you want to have some fat, and then from there, you want to maybe have some vegetables or something like that, depending on what diet you’re following. But ultimately, fat and protein are key to making it so that you’re not hungry and looking for sugar everywhere. and you’re not binge eating, or you’re not just eating snack foods all the time. These are the very simple basics. But the key is, well, then where do we go from there? What do we do with this knowledge?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Now, I want to really quick talk about something that you’ve perfected, which is making comfort food taste good, and you’ve done this for some big celebrities, people like Barbra Streisand, people like Tom Cruise, and George Clooney. When we say you’re a professional chef, you are a professional chef to the celebrities, and these are picky people. So you had to be on your A-game to be able to please them. For our audience, how do you take your family recipes, the things that people love to have, and how do you make them taste amazing? And so that your family doesn’t even know you changed something.

James Barry

Well, so it’s funny that when I start working with a client, one of the first things they ask is, What did you eat when you were a child? We can’t get past our humanness. The truth is that we all start off eating what our parents give us or provide for us. That’s the food that becomes our comfort food. It’s the foods we go to when we’re emotional, whether it’s happy and excited or fearful and scared. These are the foods that we learn about and have. and we, kind of our bodies, learn to get satiated by them. Does that mean they’re good for us? Not necessarily. But it’s what our go-to is. I immediately asked a client, What did you eat when you were younger? Then I go from there. I said, what’s the texture that you gravitate towards when you’re emotional? A lot of times you hear, creamy or soft. I like soft foods because they are crispy and salty, so you start to get these descriptors. From there, that’s the end of how you can support someone at any point in their health journey. Because, for example, let’s just talk about Brussels sprouts. If you grew up eating Brussels sprouts and they were boiled, mushy, and pale green, you’re going to have a negative association with those Brussels sprouts. But then if I make them crispy and salty and make them bright green and make it so that it’s like a chip, You told me that you like chips. Well, now you’re going to eat Brussels sprouts. So there’s that’s the in on how we can start to incorporate these different foods. We just have to hit those texture and emotion points that you’ve associated with your diet, your emotional state, and your diet. The connection, our point of view of your emotional state, and your diet.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

 This is so good. This is gold. This is why, in my programs, when I’m working with people, food is important. I’m not about to say food isn’t important, but if I emphasize too much in the beginning when we’re trying to get people’s energy back online, we’re trying to get the brain fog resolved, and we’re trying to solve some digestive issues if we focus too much on what you can’t have people give up because, like you said, we can’t get away from our humanness. Food is such a part of our lives. It’s such a part of everybody that comes from a different culture, different families, different backgrounds, and different parts of the world. It’s impossible to write a recipe guide for every person on the planet. It’s so individualized because people come from different backgrounds. This is so critical that you find a way to eat food within your environment, your realm, and what you grew up with in a healthy way. So instead of telling people exactly what to eat, it’s how to make some exchanges, shift some things, or so they can healthily enjoy those same foods.

James Barry

You think about it, so if the person says that this is where we make a mistake, we think that the comfort food is French fries, for example, like that’s the food. It has to be a potato, either a russet or a Yukon potato, and it’s got to be fried. This fat, or whatever it is, and salted with this season, that’s not what it is. It’s the texture. It’s the texture, the bite, and the feel in your mouth. That’s why, if you think about it, if you buy a bag of chips from a grocery store, you only taste the flavor of the first three chips. After that, it’s just the crunch and the saltiness that you’re now kind of addicted to or want more of. But it’s not the flavor because you can’t taste it anymore. Your taste buds are blown out. It goes to show you that we are texture like we’re it’s our emotions sometimes are satiated by, or sometimes it’s where we’ve gotten too much food like we’re numbing our feelings because we’re overeating or undereating. Sometimes there’s that. But a lot of times, it’s the texture. But the key, though, and why we need to think about these different choices beyond texture is, well, does the food have nutrition? This is because historically if you got flavor in the wild, it meant that there was nutrition attached to it. But that is not the time we live in now. We have artificial flavors or even natural flavors that are artificial. They’re just made with natural ingredients. It’s like these things are confusing. Like when you eat a bar that has no strawberries in it, but yet it tastes like strawberries. Your body’s looking for the nutrition of a strawberry, and it’s not coming. So then we tend to overeat, and that’s why, if we even do a simple movement, I’m trying to get people to not eat snacks. I’m trying to focus people on just eating a bigger meal. Because the problem that we’ve at least one of the problems I see in the grocery stores is how big the snack aisles have gotten. Remember how that used to be? There used to be my dad at the grocery store, the snack. I was like a single aisle back in the seventies, eighties, and even nineties. Now it’s like, probably 45 to 52% of the store is snacks.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s unreal. We could go down so many rabbit holes here. In the time we have, I want to make sure that we focus on one important concept that has lost favor in our modern eating environment, and that’s eating nose to tail. Can you talk about that? I want to dig into this because this is how ancient cultures ate. We know people’s lifespans. It used to be quite long; I’m talking thousands of years ago. People lived longer than they do today, maybe not in the last couple of hundred years, but thousands of years ago. Can we talk about nose-to-tail?

James Barry

That’s ultimately where I’ve kind of come in my journey, as I’ve come to realize that I do kind of promote eating animal-based. But of course, there’s a way you don’t have to do that. But if you are eating animal-based, my mission is to help you and support you in eating whole animals. What I mean by that is that there’s this concept of like supports. So when you eat just muscle meat, the concept is that you’re just supporting your muscles. But every part of that animal has nutrients that are designed to support that part. The heart, for example, is high and twice as rich, and riboflavin, which is B12 in muscle meat, has twice as much. It’s a great source of CoQ10, which is an anti-fatigue and anti-aging nutrient, and it’s something I’m sure people listening have heard of around cardiovascular, helping to protect against cardiovascular disease and whatnot. Every organ is high in nutrients to support that organ in you because it’s got a job to do. The issue is that we’ve gotten to this place, and there are lots of reasons for it. I won’t go into too much, but historically, organ meat has been a poor person’s food. That’s how it got dubbed. What happened after World War II was that two people in the households were starting to work. We had more money coming into the household. It became this issue of, I don’t want to buy the liver; I want to buy the roast beef. So the less you had people buying these organ meats, the butcher stopped carrying them because they’re not going to carry something people aren’t buying, which is a testimony to that. We do vote with our dollars. If you’re not buying something healthy for you, then they’re going to stop carrying that healthy food. now what? Where we’re at is that we’ve lost the taste for them because people don’t eat them very much. We don’t know how to cook them. Then we also struggle with sourcing. What I did was create a way for you to easily and deliciously get these organs into your diet, which is Pluck, which is, in my judgment, the easiest way to get it because it’s a seasoning. I took freeze-dried powdered ory meats, liver, heart, kidneys, spleen, and pancreas. Five of them are from grass, 100% grass-fed cows, and I combine them with organic spices and herbs to now offset that flavor. Now I’m making those organs taste good, and you don’t even need to know how to cook. You simply season your food with it. You can season it as you like after your food is already plated. as a finishing salt, or you can add it to the ingredient as an ingredient as well. But it’s just a super easy and clean way to get this organic meat nutrition and these nutrients that we’re not getting from our food in most cases, and that we’re then spending more money to get in supplement form when we could just easily get it from once again. Going back to our earlier conversation, a whole food in Oregon is a whole food.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Every question. I’m sure people are thinking right now: is seasoning my food enough, or do I need to eat six ounces of organ meat to be able to get the benefits? I want to talk about that. You don’t need to eat six ounces at a serving or eight ounces at a serving of organ meat. You can get a huge amount of benefit from half a teaspoon or a teaspoon of this in a serving of food.

James Barry

I like to say, like, going back to the ancestor concept. if we were a tribe and we killed an animal, which took a lot of effort back in the day. Let’s just say there are 23 people in our tribe. If we kill that one animal and there are 23 people, how many livers are there? That’s one thing you hear all the time. People are like, I eat my liver every other week. It’s like, But what other organs are you eating? Because you have 23 people, the liver is pretty large for a cow,  a buffalo, or whatnot. But it’s too small for 23 people. What’s going to happen is that the liver is going to go to the people that are sick, the people that are pregnant, and the people that need those nutrients. The rest of the tribe is going to get the other parts: the spleen, the pancreas, and the lungs. They’re going to get other parts of the animal that supply other nutrients and similar nutrients. When that’s what we’re talking about, when we talk about whole animals, we don’t want to just dig into one part of that animal because that’s not realistic. Our ancestors did not eat rib-eye every day, and they didn’t need liver every week. They just didn’t. It’s not a reality. There’s one liver, there’s one heart, and there’s two small kidneys. This is the way the animals are designed. This is how we are designed. with Pluck, though, yes, you are doing, sprinkles of the organ meats on your food. But here’s the thing: You’re doing it with every meal. We talk about it being microdosing frequently, which is a cumulative effect. If you look at anything in life, let’s just talk about something that’s not even connected, but let’s talk about intimacy, for example. If you’re someone who struggles with intimacy and this is how people treat food sometimes, if you’re someone who struggles with intimacy and if you hug someone once a month, is that working on your intimacy? It’s the things that we do daily. It doesn’t matter if they’re grand or small gestures, but the things we do daily are the things that move the needle. That’s why the person who’s watching this video says that’s all I want to do—that I want to get healthy one day. It’s like, it’s not. It’s not about one day. It’s about day one. It starts now because it doesn’t have to be a huge movement. It can be as simple as just sprinkling some Plucks on your food. It could be going for a walk after you eat. It could be that instead of grabbing a candy bar, you grab an apple. It doesn’t have to be a huge movement. We need to remember that it’s more important to start than to get it right.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’m writing this down like these are James’ talking points right here. We can’t get past our humanness. Look for foods that are ingredients, not ingredients; texture and emotion around food matter. Healthy starts on day one. And what’s the last thing you just said? I was just getting ready to write it down.

James Barry

I said, Well, no, it’s not one day, day one. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You’re just dropping bombs. I want to tell those stories. How did I find out about Pluck? here I was at a at a conference and functional medicine conference. This is a gathering of great minds from every possible way we can heal the human body. You were there, James, and we were eating lunch. It was a lunch break. Everyone was eating lunch together. You were walking around with this little bag in your hand, this little bag of Pluck, and you were sprinkling it on people’s food. You got to my table, and my food was done. I said, and I’m done eating. I can’t try it. You said, Well, just give me your hand. I was like, I’m going to eat liver out of my hand. Like, that’s disgusting. I don’t know if I want to do that. Know, just trust me. Eat, put. You’ve sprinkled a little bit of liver in my, the seasoning in my hand, and I gingerly kind of went like this and tried it. Then I licked at my hand because it was so good. That’s exactly what I just did. I just had people over to my house last week, and I’m like, Try this, put it in your hand, and lick it. They’re like, that’s so good. What is that? We talked a little bit about why the brain loves this so much, like what lit up in my brain when I tasted it and I went. That’s good. It has something to do with kind of that fifth sense of awe.

James Barry

Exactly what we have for taste is what we mostly talk about: the things you learn in school. There’s sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. But there was a fifth one that was discovered in Japan in the nineties, and it’s called umami. Umami is best described as meaty or savory. It’s something that the ultra-processed food industry has learned to add to products. A lot of times they add it as MSG, and sometimes it’s even hidden in products they hide, and sometimes in artificial flavors. They hide it in these different malts, these additives. But what it is, is that it triggers, first of all, the other flavors. It heightens them. Because when you have a unique flavor, it’s like, let’s say if you’re eating something sweet, you crave something salty right after. It’s because it’s a unique flavor. You can’t have sweets that are also salty unless you add salt to them. Do you get what I’m saying? Sweet doesn’t exist. Sweet and salty don’t exist on their own. It’s because you’ve added something salty. Something is sweet. Well, umami is like that as well. It’s not. It’s also not salty. Umami. What it does is brighten the salt. It brightens the sweet, it brightens the bitter, and it makes food taste better. They add it to the food, not only to make it tastier but then it also to trigger the part of your brain that is addictive. It’s got glutamate in it. So that’s MSG. That’s what that is, and it makes you crave the food more. If you’re eating something with MSG, you’re not only going to have a heightened flavor; it’s also going to be something you’re going to struggle to stop eating. Luckily, Pluck is all-natural. There’s nothing. There’s no filler, and there’s no artificial ingredient. There’s nothing. Everything in it is a whole food. It’s either a spice or an herb. We use Redmond real salt, and then the organs are unadulterated. They’re grass-fed, 100% grass-fed organs. They’re raw, freeze-dried, and powdered, and that’s it. So it’s true when I talk about buying things that are ingredients versus having ingredients. Yes. This might have six to eight ingredients, but they’re all whole foods. You look at that list and see exactly what everything is. It’s all stuff that your body recognizes. What’s beautiful about organ meats is that we’ve been talking about how nutrient-dense they are, but they’re also very bioavailable. It’s kind of like Mother Nature’s multivitamin. It’s Mother Nature’s way of putting together that multivitamin. That means the nutrients that are in there are not only the most absorbable ones but they’re also paired in a way that makes them easily absorbable. I’m sure everyone on here has been told that when they’re recommended supplements, they say, we’ll eat this with our food. Well, that’s because it’s a fat-soluble vitamin. Well, organ meat is a food. If it’s got a fat-soluble vitamin, you just eat the organ, and it all absorbs because it’s already a food. There’s no reason you have to eat food with it. It’s beautiful in that way. I love finding nutrient density in nature. I truly believe that so much of this inflammation that we’re dealing with and so much of the chronic illness that we’re dealing with is because we’re taking nature and we’re adulterated in a laboratory and then trying to spew it out in some ultra-processed, synthetic form when if we just went back to nature, we would probably be getting exactly what we needed in enough of what we needed. We may not be in this chronic illness state that we are in if we just stick to more of what’s found in nature.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I often, on behalf of many of my clients, run organic acid tests partway through their detoxing journey. It’s a good idea to see what nutrient deficiencies are still there. Once we’ve moved toxins, once we move infections, and oftentimes, vitamin deficiencies will show up, CoQ10 deficiencies will show up. If it’s not super severe, I encourage people to try to solve this with food. Guess what? This is a great way. Pluck is a great way to add those B vitamins naturally. We don’t have to go to a supplement because people can get pill fatigue going, oh, do I have to take, and honestly, B vitamins can make you feel kind of nauseous, but this.

James Barry

Well,  that’s something I would love to talk about because that is something that I more and more share with people; we’re talking about ancestral foods. We’re talking about getting as much of this nutrient density from natural foods as possible. But here’s something else that we want to be mindful of: we have a natural, biological, digestive process. It starts with our eyes. We see something, maybe in the distance. What’s that look? Imagine the first person walking through a forest and coming upon a raspberry or BlackBerry bush. Let’s just imagine that for a second. Well, they see those beautiful, plump blackberries in there or that rich, purplish, bluish color. You take a look, and you’re like, What’s that? You get a little closer now, and you can maybe smell it. Because you’re going to pick it up and smell it. there’s juice. There’s a tactile feel, and there’s a smell to it. Right away, you’re now engaging in this process that we have been biologically designed for. Then you stick it in your mouth, and you start to taste it, as we talked about the taste and the flavors. Now your saliva is mixing with this, which is going to help the digestive process that you’re swallowing. There’s a communication going on immediately once it’s in your mouth: Oh, is this good? Is this nutritious? Because it has flavor, do I need more of it? There’s this whole process that we bypass when we swallow things in pill or capsule form, and that’s when we get into trouble because of our bodies. We talked about the disconnect at the very beginning of this. One of the things that we’re extremely disconnected from is that connection to what my body needs. There’s a great quote from Bill Chinnery. He’s a professor of archeology and says, We are the only species in the world that looks to someone else to tell us what to eat. Now, even if you’re on a summit, you’re looking for someone else to support your health. Luckily, you found Laura because she’s an expert. But think about all those people who haven’t found that expert and are just kind of ping-ponging from random resource to random resource and not listening to their bodies. When we eat the food, we get immediate communication. Let’s talk about salt, for example. I put it on your tongue. Your body tells you, Do I need more or less of this salt immediately if I swallow a salt tablet? Delayed response: 15, 20 minutes later, why do I feel so bloated? This speaks to your nausea and this thing: when you swallow these pills, why do you feel so nauseous? You either got more of it than your body needed or you got it too fast. Then your body was capable of handling or detoxing whatever it was. So you were out of sync with what your body could handle at that moment. But if you had just put it in your mouth, which is why I love Pluck, because the reality is, we’re not eating those organ meats. But if I get you to sprinkle on your food, it’s now entering that process—that biological process of just disgust. It’s communicating with you. Do I need more or less of this Pluck, what’s amazing is, I’ll just say kids are an example because the kids are very much in touch with what their body needs way more than us. After all, they’re not as heavy about it. Well, when kids try to Pluck, they freak out. They can’t stop, kind of like the way you described you putting that Pluck in the hand; they can’t stop dipping their fingers in it. I believe it’s because, well, yes, it tastes good, but I truly believe that it’s because the body recognizes that this has micronutrients that I am not getting in my food, and I need and want these.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Our body tells us what we need if we listen. I’ve had clients get mad at me that my programs are full of things like shopping lists and all these recipe guides, telling them exactly what to do day by day. We have recipe guides that I say just use as a kind of template, but modify this to your body’s needs, your traditions, and your culture. This will give you a blueprint for what to eat and what not to eat. But we’re not going to micromanage what you eat because it’s kind of day by day, and your body’s going to tell you what you need. I can’t be pretty good. I can’t predict that during your process. You’ve got to listen to your body. We do a lot of teaching people to trust their intuition in their bodies.

James Barry

It’s so, and I’m so glad you do it because it’s so important, and there are so many health experts out there who are not doing that. The thing everyone’s focusing on is either eat this, don’t eat this, or don’t eat that. But the reality is, that we could make a pro or con argument for any food, from broccoli to the healthiest food to the unhealthy. There is an argument for or against everything.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Only.

James Barry

The reality is, that you just nailed it. Is that your body, though? It doesn’t know how to lie. If you are hooked on a specific diet, whether it’s carnivore or vegan, it doesn’t matter if you get hooked on a diet and you’re doing it for very heavy reasons, but your body is screaming because it’s inflamed. It’s got chronic skin issues; you’re having trouble sleeping. You wake up groggy like all these kinds of smoke signals keep shining their light and saying, Hey, what you’re doing isn’t working, and you’re not listening to that. 

That’s the issue. That’s the disconnect because the body does not lie. We have to get out of our heads about what we think is the right diet. We need to focus on slowing down and on those real whole foods. As we eat them, sit down, eat them consciously; don’t just throw everything in a blender. You don’t know. Now, you don’t know if you do react; you don’t even know what it is. But the idea is to be more conscious of what you’re eating, sit down with it, have a relationship with it, eat it slowly, and let it affect your body. Let that communication happen. Let the connection occur, and then see how your body responds. If your body responds, well, then, hey, what I’m eating is working.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

James, thank you so much for joining us today for this talk on the benefits of nutrition and organ meats. Tell our audience where they can find Plucks. I have a special offer for everyone as well.

James Barry

Yes, absolutely. You can find us at eatPluck.com. We’re also on social media @eatpluck. If you like, you can save 20% on your first purchase by using the code SILENT20.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Silent for silent killers.

James Barry

Silent Killers. SILENT20 and you’ll save 20%, and let us know how you like it. What I love and what I hear is what I’ve ultimately learned. This is the bottom line of what I’ve learned in 20 years in the health business: if we want to make healthy food a lifestyle as the person supporting it, I have to do two things. I have to make it easy, and I have to make it delicious. If I hit both of those, then you will have no reason not to eat that thing that I’m recommending. It’s important because we started this whole talk about touching on our humanness. 

We cannot escape that. You can try for a month, but you’re back to your humanity. What we want to look for are those things that we can shift daily, and the things that you’re going to do daily are the things that are easy and delicious. That’s what I’ve created with Pluck, and I encourage you to find those health things—those little movements that you can do that are daily, that are easy, and if it’s food-related, delicious. Even if it’s not food-related, you can get a walk that can be delicious as well. Next up, have fun, like finding the deliciousness of life.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I want to also tell our audience that there’s a clickable link on the pages where you’re viewing the summit, and you can find Pluck there, too. You can go to the website that James mentioned, or you can click on the links to our audience. I hope you found our conversation insightful and helpful. If you’re a summit purchaser, stay right here because I’m going to dive a little bit deeper into this discussion with James. If not, click on the button on this page to get access to a continuation of this conversation and many others, and get the tools you need to reclaim your health. 

If you’re watching this continuation of my talk with James Barry, thank you for being a valuable member of our community, and I’m going to dive right back in. I want to know a little bit more, James. There are steps that people can take to incorporate organ meats into their diet, and you’ve started to touch on them. But for people who are thinking, I just can’t do that, or maybe we have vegans or vegetarians here who are thinking that their intuition is telling them to eat some meat, but they just can’t do it because they’ve been away from meat for so long. For whatever reason, I work with lots of people who have lots of reasons why they eat this or that. But if their intuition is telling them I should probably try this, what would you say? How do you start creating that habit in a gentle way that feels authentic to your body? It makes it easy.

James Barry

I would say that the first thing is that you want to look for something easy. That is how I design Pluck when I break down, like the different steps to easing into organ meets. I do see Pluck as a gateway, mostly because it hits the kind of hurdles that we struggle with. Like if you’re someone who’s just getting back into me, because you’re vegan or vegetarian, or even if you’re someone who is a carnivore and who’s been struggling to get organ meats, both people are struggling with very similar issues, which is dealing with the texture difference because organ meats have a different texture than muscle meat, not knowing how to cook it. Sometimes it’s the smell, the kind of like it, and how do I cook it? Like, what do I do with it? It’s too much because the organ is so big. Pluck solves that right away. I would say that’s the gateway. But from there, the next step would be, well, find grains, and they’re in the freezer aisles, but find grains that are already blended. You’ll find ground meats mixed with between seven and 14% organ meats; the liver and heart are the two prominent organs in the grains. But a lot of different providers have those. If you’re going to the grocery store, look in the freezer aisle. If you don’t see it in the freezer, I’ll just go to the meat department and ask them if they have it. But that’s the next great step because you don’t have to do much, and it doesn’t taste like organ meat. Now, the third one is, let’s just say you’re going to your local farmer’s market, which I recommend people do because it’s one of the main ways you can bridge that gap of transparency with where you’re getting the food, how they’re feeding the animals, how they’re treating the animals, talking to the actual farmers, and you’ll find that there is a meat provider there. What I recommend is that you purchase, let’s say, if you can, chicken hearts. Chicken hearts would be the first one I purchase. If they don’t have chicken hearts, then go ahead and purchase a beef liver, and I’ll explain how to use both of them. But chicken hearts are beautiful because they’re small, they’re very mild, and some people would almost say that they’re sweet. They’re a nice entry into chopping up cooking with these organ meats. The heart is kind of shaped like a mushroom, in my judgment. So that’s kind of how I treat it. If I were making spaghetti sauce and adding mushrooms to it, I probably would only use two to three mushrooms. I’d chop them up small and I’d add the sauce. I’m not. I don’t want the sauce to be too strong with mushrooms. I just want it to have little chunks and a little bit of flavor. Well, that’s how I would initially treat the arguments: you don’t want it to dominate; you don’t want the flavor to dominate. You just want to get some of that nutrition. two or three hearts, just chop them up so that they don’t look like hearts. Because that’s the other hurdle we have: the visual. Sometimes people see a heart and think of their mortality and their own heart. We have to move away from that visual of the organ meat. The more you can either grate it, chop it, or kind of get it away from that shape, the better for your psychology. then you’re keeping the ratio down. then you’re not getting huge bursts of these organ flavors because the liver, for example, can have a very ironic or metallic taste because it’s so rich in minerals; the heart, not so much, but it does have a slightly different taste than the muscle. Me Now, once you’ve done that with chicken hearts, I guarantee you’ll find that it’s not a deal like no one even notices. They don’t taste the difference. It probably doesn’t even come up in conversation unless you tell people you put it in there. It’s a great thing to do. Initially, we’re used to it. Don’t tell anyone; watch the responses, but I guarantee they’re going to probably love that sauce because, once again, we’re connecting people to the food that has the nutrition that their body is craving. that’s key. You don’t have to be transparent right away about what it is, particularly if someone’s going to have a hurdle about it. You don’t want to trigger any kind of like-ick response if that person’s picky. That picky response is not justified. It’s just been learned. It’s not real; it’s not serious. We only take it seriously if we reinforce it. What I recommend is that you just do it. Let them start to feel better in their bodies, keep doing it for a while, and then once it’s no longer a big deal, you can let them know if you even need to do that. But let’s just say that’s how I would handle a chicken liver. Now, if you were doing a beef, I’m sorry, a chicken heart, if you were doing the beef liver as I suggested, they didn’t have chicken hearts the way I would do that. The other trick is that organ meats come to you frozen already, so they’re less overwhelming. When they’re frozen, it’s when they’re defrosted. They get so overwhelming because it’s big and you’re like, Well, I don’t know what to do with it. It’s slimy, and it kind of melts when it heats up. It’s just overwhelming because we’re not used to it. What you do is keep it frozen. So you’re what I’m going to suggest—what the beef liver is—creating your grind. Next, every time you’re using ground meat, it doesn’t matter if it’s lamb, beef, or turkey; it doesn’t matter. You pull out that beef liver, and you grate it. This is a little box grater; whatever you have, grate it and just use about a tablespoon, maybe two tablespoons tops, and let it fall into the ground. MI: Mix it in and then make your hamburgers, your meatloaf, or whatever order your spaghetti sauce, your bolognaise, whatever you’re doing, just keep moving forward from that point. But then take that liver and put it right back in the freezer. Make sure it’s sealed well and it should last for months. You can just grate it every week. Just grate about a tablespoon or two into your meals or whatever you’re doing. If you’re doing more than that, you can go every two weeks. It doesn’t mean we don’t need an enormous amount. It’s so nutrient-packed that you can get by with a little bit every week and feel the benefits.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This, you make it all sound so easy, James. You just feel like people are watching, like I could do that. I could try this; it is not hard, and I hope people are feeling inspired to try something new and to trust their intuition and gut instinct. It’s a real thing. In the last few moments that we have here, I’d love to just give you the floor and any final things, any pearls of wisdom, because you truly do drop a lot of pearls of wisdom. But, any final tips? Just help your family eat healthy, help yourself eat healthy, enjoy your food, and make it not a chore. Putting so much emphasis on food is hard. It’s hard to eat healthy, and it doesn’t have to be. What would be your final thoughts here as we wrap up?

James Barry

Well, right away, it would be that we should just know that our mindsets and frames of mind are not permanent. and that, particularly around food, we get so tied up to food emotionally that we tend to think it’s permanent that we didn’t like Brussels sprouts as a kid, which means we don’t like them as an adult. I just want to open up. I just ask everyone to open up their minds and realize that, first of all, food is fuel. It’s a functional thing that we do to live. We sometimes use very strong words with it. We say I love that food. But our brains don’t know how to categorize that because when we love something, it has to do with a person. a feeling. so the brain does not know where to file it. When we say, I love French fries, I love chips, You’re putting such an emphasis on something that doesn’t naturally have that emphasis. It’s just fuel. Now, you can enjoy food. You can think it’s delicious; you can think it’s tasty. But right away, just reframing the intensity that sometimes we put on the food, because here’s what happens: we put that intensity on the food, but then we also in turn put that intensity on ourselves, like, why did I eat this way? I shouldn’t have. We shame ourselves based on what we’re eating. We also put the intensity on ourselves, saying that I should know how to cook because I eat every day. I should. I should be better at this. It’s like, no, you don’t. It doesn’t need that intensity on either side of it. It doesn’t need to be overly amazing. It doesn’t need to be overly shameful that there is a balance. But the balance starts with taking a breath. So I want to just leave us with this one concept that is so simple. But we forget it. We forget it so much, which is that before you go to eat your food, just take a moment. Whether that moment is prayer, grace, or just a breath, Just take a moment, get in your body, and then enjoy the food as you eat it, taste it, chew it, let the experience be what it is, and then feel how it feels in your body. But those little movements you will find will change your health because we’re all eating way too fast. Where we’re gravitating towards foods, we’re eating too fast. We’re not in a lot. A lot of us are very dehydrated. We’re also not some of us are going too long without eating that. We’re then making poor decisions when we go to eat. we’re looking for, like quick calories or quick sugar rushes or whatever it is. If you just kind of have a little bit more regularity, balance, and mindfulness, it’s amazing how much better you digest your food, the choices you make around your food, and in general, how much better you feel because we don’t need as much food as you think to satiate. It’s more about what foods you’re eating. Those are the decisions you’re making around the foods you’re eating. That’s what’s going to satiate you. It’s not about the amount of it. I’ll just give this as an example of what I just said. I tried it for a month. I ate a diet that was all raw, and primal, which was all raw meat and any raw animal products. I did that for a month. I’ll tell you right now that I had the best digestion and the most amazing health that whole month. I didn’t eat very much. I’m not telling you to go out and eat raw, primal food because it’s very hard to do, particularly if you want to live in society. But what I’m more saying is that we have this idea that we need tons of food to be satiated, but it’s more about what foods you’re eating, eating the right foods that will satiate you, and then reconnecting what your body needs within the foods you’re eating.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That is a truth bomb. We’re going to leave it right there. This has been an extraordinary talk. People are motivated and inspired by food, especially organic meat. I’m sure people are feeling like it’s not so scary. It’s it gets to be easy. It’s simple, and it’s tasty, too. Tell us one more time where our audience can get a look at the generous discount that you have.

James Barry

You can save 20% at eatPluck.com by using the code SILENT20. We also have a recipe section. Make sure to check recipes if you need any support on what to do with Pluck or how to cook organ meats. There are tons of amazing recipes on the site.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Thank you so much. It’s your love for what you do that shines through in your words. You could still be cooking for Tom Cruise. You could still be working for Barbra Streisand. You could still be doing that stuff. But instead, you’ve chosen a different life. You’ve chosen to pour your knowledge and what you’ve learned throughout your career into helping people heal their bodies. It is so admirable that you’ve left a huge mark and a ripple effect on the world. James Zo, I love talking to you. It’s why I love bringing you into our community; our programs and our clients love what you have done. I just thank you so, so much. Until next time, everyone, So take good care of your health.